Radio pulsar spin-down stability Original Research Article

Observations show that almost all pulsars exhibit measurable departures from the cubic law predicted for the slow down. This has been largely attributed to rotational irregularities – timing noise, glitches, and precession. Here, we present an analysis of ‘reliable’ frequency second-derivative for 262 radio pulsars having characteristic ages ∼103–1010 yr and periods in the range ∼1.6 ms to 4 s. We find a high degree of correlation between the value predicted by dipole braking mechanism, image, and the measured value, image. We argue that the relationship is suggestive of some other systematic process(es) in the pulsar spin-down in addition to the magnetic dipole mechanism and the timing noise. Based on this relationship we are able to quantify the rate of instability in radio pulsars.